When I was 11, the guys in bands were gods. And up until I was in my teens my friends and I would get to the intended dance early to help the boys pack in the equipment. For this effort we received two perks: First, the door man would usually let us stay for the first set - until the 10:00pm curfew horn blew. And, second, we got to manhandle the totems of great desire. There were names like Rogers, Slingerland, Bogen and, the Holy Grail of all names, Fender.
Most of the band guys smoked and that was readily accepted. I had Beatle bubble gum cards which showed the Fab Four smoking so these stars could surely follow that lead. Of course, I would have been drawn and quartered by my father for partaking of an Export A or Number 7.
They also wore band outfits on stage like all the big recording bands and practiced a crude form of choreographics where they moved in unison. This was especially noticeable in instrumental songs like “Let’s Go!” where they even yelled the title at certain parts of the song. Singing was usually not their forte and many of them only had two mikes between four guys. The drummer almost never sang, usually because, at the time, there was no boom attachments to the stands.
In 1965 most band guys did not have “Beatle Haircuts.”
They had the Brylcreemed, swept-back style of Franki Valli or Bobby Rydell’s pompadour but stopped short of the “ducktail” and jellyrolls of the “greaseballs.” The first band guy I knew that had hair down past his upper earlobe was a friend of the family named Dennis Davies, a flashy drummer with a Stewart kit whom my father used to remind to “get a haircut, Davies!” He even got kicked out of school for a while until he got a trim. (Today, at almost 58, he is doing four shows a day at the Calgary Stampede, drumming with all sorts of bands from country to tribute. He just turned down a 2 year tour with Uriah Heap because he is looking after his granddaughter.)
Bands had great names too: The Epics; The Henchmen; The Playboys; The Stolen Lords; The Nocturnals; The Ticons; The B.C. Chevelles; The Piltdown Men; The Fugitives. In February of 1966 there was a “Battle of the Bands” at our own Selkirk High School featuring these groups. There was an A and a B category, the latter for younger bands. The Fugitives won the B and, I believe, The Epics won the A even though they pulled a Who and knocked down their equipment after the show. They stopped short of destroying it. Dennis Davies played with The Epics and his mother gave him what-for after the display. I thought it tied the theme together nicely.
And I went home afterward and sang into my Armaco crystal mike perched on the broomstick - which was screwed to the piece of plywood - and pretended I won as best singer.
Stumble it!